I am honoured to be able to welcome a true celebrity of the (not only) German Scrapbooking scene as guest author on my blog.

Janna Werner lives and works in Oldenburg, Niedersachen (Germany). Her passion for paperarts startet in 2010, after a friend introduced her to Scrapbooking. Since then, Janna designs for international companies, works with other artists and writes for magazines and other publications.

On June 11th, she publishes her first book called “Paper Art”. It not only contains a lot of Scrapbooking, Mini books, Art Journaling and Mixed Media projects, but also detailed basic knowledge.

Janna also teaches (Online-) classes to spread knowledge about Scrapbooking and Mixed Media. I am looking forward to a cooperation with Janna in her class “Midsummer Nigh't’s Dream” (very exciting!) in mid September – watch out for it :)

Getting started with Scrapbooking – All beginnings are difficult? by Janna Werner

Sometimes the saying “All beginnings are difficult” absolutely hit the mark. Think of learning how to correctly hold a golf club or of learning the correct finger position when playing a flute. With Scrapbooking this is not necessarily true, even beginners can start right away and let their creativity flow.

Below you can find a short explanation of the basics, if you haven’t come across Scrapbooking yet.

What is Scrapbooking

The term “Scrapbooking” refers to the act of highlighting one or more photos on paper. Embellishments, stickers, Memorabilia, stamps, sprays and templates are used to decorate a Scrapbooking layout. The classic layout size is 30.5 x 30.5 cm (12 x 12’’). You can store your layouts in albums, frames or boxes.

Design principles

Design principles are helpful to create an appealing layout. I will briefly talk about about a few principles in this article and will refer to the examples shown on the layout of this post.

Direction of view

If you are writing from left to right, you will most likely also look at a scrapbooking page this way. The direction of view starts from the upper left side to the upper/middle right side. To keep the view on the page, you need to place a focus on the left side, which directs the eye back.

Example: The main part of my layout lies between the central vertical axis and the right border. The red/white striped paper on the right side, draws the viewer’s eye to the end of the page. The quite big title on the left, draws the view back to the layout.

Repetition

The repetition of individual elements contributes to a harmonious layout. In addition, certain areas of a page can be created f.e. similar in color, to link them together.

Example: On this layout the colors red, turquoise and yellow are repeated, as well as some elements ( butterflies, circles, cameras, banners…)

Whitespace

Whitespace is the (undecorated) area of a page, which doesn’t necessarily have to be white. Whitespaces breaks away from the decorated areas, highlights them and can be used to keep the page in balance.

Example: I chose a light background paper for my layout to support the decorated areas. The areas above and below the title are almost free of embellishments, which helps to harmonise the rather turbulent title area.

Contrast

Using contrasts on your layouts generates more dimension and suspense. There are lots of different ways to use contrast: f.e. dark/light, warm/cold, colorful/achromatic.

Example: title of my layout: I used two contrasty fonts to create suspension. One is rather plain and large (“My”), the other is playful, whimsical (“sunshine”).

The rule of thirds

The rule of thrids is a style guide from photography, which can also be applied to scrapbooking. The project gets divided into nine equyl areas. The element, you want to highlight, will be placed at or wihtin the lines and or at the junctions.

Example: The main elements (title, foto) have been placed on the imaginary lines and nodes.

Layering

Layering describes the act of positioning different layers on a background. These layers can be embellishments, papers (scraps) or layers color. Layering loosens-up the big picture and created dimension, which makes the project more interesting.

Example: I used paper, embellishments, die-cuts, rub-ons, tags on top of each other. Bending the paper borders also generates more depth on my project.

I hope my post inspired you and gave you insight on the basics of Scrapbooking. You can visit me on my blog: jannawerner.de

Really interesting.....funny how a lot of things you don't actually know, but do almost without thinking about....I DID know about the 'rule of thirds', but I'd forgotten:):) Thanks for the informative article:):)

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